Let the Dream Descend
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: She arrived the night before, and stayed with him through to the end. Kay!verse.
1. Erik

Nadir. True Nadir. Loyal, faithful Nadir. Here now, of course he is. He always is, in fact he refuses to leave. Creeping in as a phantasm, always appearing just when he longs to be left alone.

When he had that last attack it was Nadir who caught him as he fell, Nadir who loosened his cravat so he could breathe. Only natural, really, for it to be him. Nadir nursed him through the Persian poison, of course he should be here at his death. There is a certain justice in it.

"I'm certain your mutterings would make sense if you'd permit me to take off the mask," Nadir's voice is gentle even as it strives for some of its old snappishness.

The room swims back into view, and Erik can't remember when he lost it, lost the view of Christine's room and of Nadir seated gravely next to him, Ayesha resting on the bed sheets. He stretches his right hand – his _good_ hand now, the left rendered useless after the last attack – and lays it on her back, her slim body warm beneath his touch. At least he still has her if no one else. "It would be nonsensical to take the mask off," he murmurs, or tries to. Frankly he cannot be sure how much of it comes out. Nadir nods sadly, so he must make some sense.

The heaviness in his chest stabs suddenly, a sharp, lancing dagger in his heart and as he fights to breathe around it, Nadir slips an arm under his back and raises him carefully, cradling him as he once held Reza and dammit why won't the stabbing ease? Morphine. He must have morphine to take it away.

"It's too soon, Erik. Too soon for more."

Too soon? What does that matter now? He's dying anyway. What does it matter if the morphine hastens the inevitable? Is that to be a relief granted to Reza but not to him? A mercy for other people, like so much else? If he could move his arm he'd pluck the solution from the pocket where Nadir has it and administer it himself!

"Easy, Erik. It won't be long now." Nadir's voice is oddly strangled. Why is it strangled? He can't move his left hand for to strangle him, and his right has tightened so hard on the sheets that he's liable to shred the fabric.

A sharp bolt lances deeper than before, piercing right through to the bone and suddenly he can take a breath. He sucks the sir in desperately, chest heaving, heart racing so fast that surely it will pound its way through its cage of ribs and perhaps that would be a mercy, to be rid of the damned disloyal thing that makes him suffer for its infidelity.

The stars dance in Nadir's eyes, glittering in the darkness as surely as if they hung in the sky. How he longed to touch them when he was a boy and used to jump out of his bedroom window. They were so far away, so distant that they would not care about masks and little boys with skulls for faces. The merciful, all-forgiving stars that see all and fear nothing, and nobody fears them.

One star falls hot and golden from Nadir's eyes and settles on his shirt, nestling close. A star because he says it's a star. (A cat basket because he tells her it's a cat basket, her eyes glazed and staring, a palace to a flea.)

 _You're very ill, aren't you? What shall I do if you die?_

Her voice soft, a whisper on the air as his eyes slip closed, her fingertips light against his cheek. And if she will make him some tea, perhaps then he will know what to say.

* * *

 _I've got one or two excellent knives that would be admirably suited to the purpose_.

The white dress stained deep crimson, one such knife buried to the hilt in her stomach. He is too late. Ever too late. Destined to lose everyone, to watch them slip away, gliding through his fingers like so much mist. The ghosts in his head, his own private opera, revolving and returning, slipping and slipping and he is on his knees trying to put it all together, trying to put her back to together. Her blood runs through the lines of his hands, lingering in the creases of his palms, the cuffs of his shirt stained pink. And he can't stop the bleeding, her blank eyes staring through him, can't put her back together. Why can he not put her back together? The truly grand romantic gesture in the bridal suite.

 _Shall I tell you how he nursed me through Persian poison and risked his life to save me from the shah's malice?_

Nadir never left, always there though by rights he should have been gone long ago. He tried to push him away and yet he always came back, that soft-voiced lilting accent. Yes, Nadir is a friend for all of his faults, willing to give him a comfortable place to die even as he vomits blood over white marble, terrible flames ripping through his stomach, Nadir's hand rubbing circles on his back.

 _My music man is broken_

The knife, its blade shining silver in the candlelight, rips through the hanging black drapes. They hang still in the air for a glittering moment, before tumbling, weaving slowly to the ground.

 _Yes, master._

The master mason nods, and the sigh which he releases drains every last ounce of strength from his weary bones. The palace will be completed, a desert monument to him as his legs buckle and he sways, floating, falling to the ground.

 _All masons come to this fate in time, Erik – there's no cure been found for a lung full of grit and dust._

Inevitable, father. Yes. Bound to happen. The lungs clog with the harshness of such labour. Nothing to be done for it. Chest full of mortar, constricted and tight. His father, that wonderful old Italian man, swims before him, and he could reach out to touch that cracked face if his hand would lift, but that's filled with mortar too. (How can a hand fill with mortar? Such things bear no thinking about.)

 _Kisses. One now and one to save_.

He deserves no kisses, though how he longs for them. Kisses to fill the hollowness inside. Kisses. Wonderful kisses. The one thing he was never able to steal, however proficient he became at pocket watches and purses. He hasn't been good, and it isn't his birthday, but oh how he's tried. Can't she see that? She never gave him a birthday before, and then she did but the only gift amounted to his slashed wrists. Kisses, though. Kisses would make it right, would take the burning away. And instead she sits on the edge of his bed and sings to him in her soft voice, not daring to touch the bandages tight around his wrists. If she would only hold him close…

"I fear he may not know you, mademoiselle. He had a lengthy conversation with me earlier thinking I was his father."

 _Don Juan Triumphant_ shredded between his fingers. What good does it now? He raped her with his music, drove her to attempt suicide. Such things do not deserve a public hearing.

"Erik, angel, darling, do you hear me?" Fingers, soft against the back of his head.

Dreaming. Surely he must be dreaming. It is the morphine. It is death welcoming him in its embrace at last. She cannot be here. She must not be here. De Chagny would not permit it though he promised he would. Wise boy. Heaven knows if things had been different he would not have permitted it either. Better to be safe where such matters are concerned.

"I suspect not, mademoiselle. He has not been conscious of his surroundings in many hours."

The pain throbs deep in his chest, a flashing flicker of the heavy agony of before. Some noise, some whimper low in his throat must pass his lips, because that sweet dreamt up voice is whispering to him again so soft, so gentle.

The air is cold on his face, the mask disappeared by a clever conjurer's trick, her breath warm, lips on his forehead. His dreams are improving. If he only moves, just so, then he could almost hold her with his good arm…

When did phantoms come to feel so solid?

With a tremendous effort, he forces his eyes open. His mother's face (when did his mother have two faces?) swims before his eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks, to fall and mingle with his own. She smiles a thin, watery smile and bows her head, her lovely lips pressed to his mangled ones, and it's not his mother. His mother would never kiss him, not even at his death, and certainly not like this.

Christine. His Christine. His beautiful, innocent, angelic Christine. How comes she to be here now?

"Chri-" His voice is cracked, hoarse, and she shushes him gently, one light finger pressed to his lips.

"Sshh, darling. Don't speak, just rest." She looks behind her, and he is too tired to see who stands there, marvelling simply at the wonder that is Christine being back here now. He has always known that there is a vengeful God, but perhaps He has His moments of mercy too. "Good monsieur." Her voice is soft, so soft that he almost doesn't catch her words. "You've been a friend to him, a friend to us both. Will you," she swallows, the tears dripping precious drops of liquid silver down her cheeks, "will you stand as our witness before God?"

He misses the answering words, misses the whole exchange that follows, snatches whisking to his ears and fading away, drifting on the breeze, a vague sense of his lips forming a whispered _I do_. And all he can do is raise his right hand and press it to her cheek, the tears slipping over his fingers. She is here, she is perfect, even in her tearful paleness.

If he questions her she'll dissipate, fade back into the mist from whence she came, and he can't allow that. She's here, she's slipping the thin gold band onto his finger. Dream or no, what does it matter how she came to be here? She's here and that's, that's all he needs to know.

His eyes slip closed against his best efforts with the exhaustion of taking in her radiance in his weakened condition. Her lips are back on his forehead, featherlight kisses pressed together, side by side. _I love you_ , a murmur repeated at each press of those lips. _I love you, Erik. I love you. I love you._

 _I love you_. His lips form the words, as habitual as if he's said them every day of his life, a whisper to the air. A murmured prayer, a penitent man here at the last. An _I do_ binding them here in this deathbed. Her mouth is at the edge of his now, tongue soft, catching his tears, trailing over his lips and leaving them tingling, slipping so slowly between them. _I love you. I love you_.

 _I love you, too,_ breathed back. Sighed into his mouth. Her hands light on his chest, abolishing the tightness, that terrible tightness he's carried around for so long. It is the first time he's been able to breathe easy in he forgets how long. She loves him, she really does, and she's here. He need not be alone.

Her fingers insinuate themselves between the buttons of his trousers. He is oddly conscious of them, and of the heat, the unfamiliar strange heat flushing his skin, driving the cold away. A living bride. A true living bride. And a dying groom. What a twist. So this is her opera. A master stroke of genius. He would never have thought of it himself, a possibility he did not foresee. He prefers it this way, he thinks. More justice to it. Better that she live, rather than him.

His breaths stutter faster, her lips on his throat, mouthing smooth kisses, whispered sentiments, the air cold on his bare skin. Her hands on his hips, gripping them tight. There are only hands and lips. And he can't move his left hand for to better feel the softness of her skin, so the clumsy right one will have to suffice, fingers clutching her hip, bruising the porcelain no doubt.

But she is his living bride, and he hasn't been able to allow himself to entertain such a thought in oh so long.

Touch-starved his whole life, having her now is overwhelming. His heart aches and it has nothing to do with his illness. Eyes stinging he forces them open, a burning desperation to drink her in, to see her now, his hips thrusting him deep into her, and how did they get to this? He has no recollection, mind like treacle. She loved treacle when she was a child, she told him so once as he lay on the black couch, a cup of her weak tea gripped in the now-deadened left hand.

A shudder trembles through his body, and he sinks deeper into the bed, panting for breath though the pain is gone for now, wonder of her presence here. Still she presses kisses to his face, each one a whispered apology, a confession. _I'm sorry for Raoul. I'm sorry for leaving. I'm sorry for banging my head against the wall. I'm sorry for singing when I had a cold. I'm sorry for not returning sooner. I'm sorry for planning to leave without telling you._

 _I'm sorry._

 _I'm sorry._

 _I'm sorry._

Each sorry a litany, an atonement for her sins, though she has no sins to atone for. She is young, she is innocent, he drove her to so much. Her sins are his sins really. He made her fear him and the rest was inevitable.

She'll stay until the end, now. He knows that, knows she won't leave him but it is dreadfully selfish of him to keep her here. She shouldn't have to see his death, shouldn't have to carry that with her through the remainder of her life. He has done so much to her, but he can at least spare her his death throes.

He looks down at their joined hands, her small fingers interlaced with his long bony ones. Raising her hand to his lips he kisses it gently. "Go, Christine," he murmurs. "Go."

"No, Erik." Even thick with tears her voice is firm, strangely so for her. "I told you that I'm staying, and I'm going to stay. Right to the very end, all right?" She kisses him again. So many kisses. Is she trying to make up for lost time? To live a whole life with what they have left?

"I don't," he swallows, and now the pain is throbbing insistently, sharpening then dulling again, sharp bolts of lightning that obliterate every thought, "don't want you to see it." His words are faint, almost lost and she disentangles their fingers, stroking away the tears that are still leaking from his eyes.

"I don't care, Erik. I promise I'm not going to leave you." She folds herself around him, tenderly cradling his head to her chest, kissing his forehead. Her heart beat is a steady lull, soft and reliable even as his own heart swells so his throat aches. The pain sharpens, so sharp that one of his own admirable knives could have been plunged into his chest, piercing deep. The scope of his vision narrows down to her eyes, those lovely deep eyes that he could get lost in, float away and never return. How lovely it would be to float away, to escape the agonising stabbing of his heart with each feeble beat. Every muscle of his body contorts against it, fighting desperately to escape, but he can't escape something that's rooted in his chest, in his very being. And he can't breathe. He can't breathe! Death's flames tearing through his lungs, leaving nothing in their wake, razing all that they meet the way he sometimes wondered, in his darker moments, about razing Paris to the ground. Pinpricks of light. That's all that's left for him.

The black silence that washes over his mind is merciful.

* * *

 _The music flowing forth from his fingers as they dance across the keys of his organ is soft, gentle. A lullaby, a requiem, an appeasement to keep the dead asleep. So unlike his normal compositions and yet he has no inclination to return to the soul-shredding horror of his_ Don Juan _. There is something easy in simply letting himself_ be _for once, even if the very act of that being would have him discredited. A light hand falls to his shoulder, a caress trailing down his arm, and he smiles. She always enjoys his softer music._

 _He finishes the sonata – is it a sonata? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is a tribute to her_ – _with a flourish and she settles onto the stool next to his. He takes her hand – so small! so delicate! – in his and kisses her palm, entwining their fingers as she lays her head on his shoulder._

How are you feeling? _She doesn't speak the words, but he hears them anyway, echoed in his brain, the gentle note of concern in her voice going straight to his heart._

Better, now _. His fingers tap out a few more keys of their own volition, the thin golden band on the third finger of his left hand glinting in the candlelight. A lump catches in his throat. It's been so long and he is still so unused to seeing it there, to feeling it beneath his thumb when he toys with it idly as he's composing._

You look it. _She inclines her head and kisses his cheek._ Come. Charles wishes to show you his designs.

 _No wonder the boy has been so quiet all day if he's been designing. He chuckles, and allows her to guide him to Charles' room. A ream of paper must be spread across the floor, and in the middle of it, head bowed, hand sketching industriously, sits little Charles himself._

It's an opera house, papa, _he says softly, not looking up._ Look, over there by the mirror are my plans for the fifth basement, just above the lake. _He gestures with the pencil in his hand, a sharp point before returning to his drawing._ There are secret passages, a hollow marble column in box five and hundreds of trapdoors. Do you like it, papa?

Charles, it's wonderful.

 _And at last the boy looks up, Christine's eyes shining out at him from a five year old face split with a grin. A perfect face with a full nose and untarnished lips. Why was he worried it might be anything otherwise?_

Maman said you'd think so.

Your maman can be very clever, sometimes. _He crosses the room to the mirror and picks up the plans for the fifth basement to better inspect them. Before he can look any closer, his eye catches the reflection in the mirror. At once it is and is not his face – the bone structure is the same, the black hair greying at the edges lends him an oddly distinguished air, the yellow eyes that he is so grateful did not pass to Charles glitter as they ever did._

 _For a moment, he can't place what is so disconcerting about the reflection, and then it strikes him. That horrible dream last night, that made him wake sweating to Christine gently shushing him. The horrendously deformed face that looked back at him from the mirror when he took his mask off. Those full lips were mangled, those eyes set so deep in their sockets it was if they were two candles burning out from empty eye sockets and the nose –_

 _Of course he knew it was a dream at the time. It would be ridiculous to entertain any thought otherwise. He smiles now and the reflection smiles back, the same smile that Christine insists made her heart skip a beat the first time he turned it on her. How ludicrous a thought, that a smile can put a heart into temporary fibrillation. Wherever did she get such a notion?_

What are you crying over, papa?

Your marvellous opera house, son. I could not design better myself.

* * *

The darkness wraps him like a shroud, so comforting and safe. Nothing can harm him now, not even his troublesome heart. Everything is numb, delightfully so, as if he treated himself to a hypodermic full of morphine, that glorious drug. Oh morphine, dear morphine.

"Anywhere you go, let me go too," the words are soft, murmured in his ear so that they slip into his thoughts, embedding themselves inside of his heart. "Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime. Say the word and I will follow you." Her voice cracks, lips pressed to his cheek. "Oh, Erik."

He gropes through the darkness, seeking, searching until his fingers find her, brushing the soft fabric of a dress with all of the helplessness of a child. His fingers are captured and kissed, one by one, her lips soft.

She is here, before him, her face soft in the candlelight, tears glistening. She is so beautiful, a masterful work of art. Breaking free from her grasp, his fingers trace the curve of her cheek, trailing down to her throat, that delicate throat, her pulse beating against his touch. How he hates having to leave her, having to make her a widow at such a tender age (would she be a widow? the ring glints on his finger, so surely she would be) and yet there is no way to stop it. There is nothing that he or she or anyone else can do to turn the tide of what is happening. Each breath draws him ever closer to the last. It can only be hours left now.

"Christine," his voice is faint, an echo, and he's not certain if she can hear him though he hopes she can, "I love you." Ayesha jumps onto the bed, nudging her small face against his own, and his lips twitch. "And I love you, my darling. Christine will take care of you now." With his good right hand he slides the ring off his finger, gesturing for Christine to give him her hand. He slips the ring onto her finger and kisses it. "I believe it is customary...for the groom to give it...to his bride."

 _I believe, on such a day, it would be quite permissible to kiss the bride…would it not?_ He said that once, did he not? He did, those words which now twist slowly in his mind were his own, a last act of desperation, knowing it would be impossible. _Kiss the bride_. And he kissed her, or more accurately she kissed him, not that semantics much matter. _Permissible to kiss the bride_. She wasn't to be his bride, he was merely giving her away. He couldn't do it in a church. Weddings make him cry.

(Of course his eyes are burning when she's pledged herself to him. There was no need for her to do that. Such an act, her lips so light on his face.)

She purses her lips tight, a tear trickling down over them, seeping into her mouth. If he had the strength to kiss them away he would. Her sweet face should not have to know such tears. How he wishes things could be different. It seems he's spent most of his life quietly wishing for impossible things in the back of his mind, even as he fought not to do so. She should never have come back to him, it was wrong. It would be better for her and the Vicomte if she didn't have this added burden of grief, and things will be difficult enough with the Vicomte after her returning to him.

"Raoul doesn't matter now," she whispers, as if she can read his thoughts. He must be talking to himself again without realising it. How intolerable this dying is, when he can't maintain his once-perfect control! "Don't think of him now, Erik. Please."

How easy that would be, to just forget the Vicomte! But he can't forget him, how could he? He entrusted the Vicomte to look after her after his time, and that's more important now than ever! She'll need someone to make sure she's all right, to ensure she doesn't simply go into herself and wither away. What a tragedy that would be!

"He n-"

"He'll look after me, Erik. He will. He promised you he will, didn't he? Don't worry about me, please don't wear yourself out with it. It doesn't matter."

It does matter. It matters so much that he isn't surprised that she doesn't grasp it. She's not the one dying, she can't see how important it is to him that she's looked after. If he had the strength he'd extract a small fortune off those foolish managers for to keep her if the Vicomte cuts her off. It is duty, and yet he can't even raise his hand to wipe away her tears.

He can't argue with her, not now. He is too tired and time is too short. If he tries to argue she'll fret that he's killing himself faster. No, now it's better to acquiesce to her wishes.

He presses himself closer to her chest and sighs. How wonderful it is to die here, in the comfort of her arms, listening to the steadiness of her beating heart. She'll keep him close, and he can sleep in peace. How can such a mercy be granted to one such as him? The crimes he's committed…She truly is one of His angels.

The exhaustion is bone-deep, a heaviness pulling him down as if his clothes were lead-lined. A lead-lined coffin…No better place for him now. She can put him into his canopied coffin in the other room. He once said that she might have to, though he turned it into a joke at the time, asking for tea to take her mind off his illness. The weariness of the world embedded in every fibre of his being…And still she is here, still murmuring soft words to him, still smiling through her tears and holding him close. He's forgotten why she's here, can't quite grasp the answer though it's hiding somewhere in the back of his memory. Her hands on his and a gold ring. He's unravelling even as he lies here in her arms, mind loosening, threads spinning free.

Is she really here? Or is he dreaming? He can't quite re-call.

"I'm so tired, Christine." His lips are stiff, unwilling to form the words, and he has the unpleasant suspicion that he slurs them more than speaks them. Indeed, she is flickering before his eyes. How undignified that he's losing control of his senses in front of her.

He's used to the cold, well-adjusted to it. But it's creeping into his blood, chilling him from the inside out. Christine is warm, but not warm enough to drive the ice from his veins. He shivers against her, the darkness wrapping around him, and she holds him tighter. "Sleep all you need," her voice cracks. "Sleep. Oh, God. Erik." She kisses him again, one last meeting of their lips that lingers even as he feels himself slipping further away, her voice fainter, her touch lighter. "I love you."

And he's floating on the waves on a rolling black river, lying on his back, the stars hanging above him, jewels on a tapestry, and an angel of music singing softly in his ear.


	2. Christine

He's so still, so quiet, his body limp and heavy in her arms. When she left she didn't realise how ill he was, how close he was coming to the end, even then. And she wonders now, as she presses a kiss to his cool forehead (and another one, and another one) if he knew it then. If he had some sort of premonition of how short his time was. She would have stayed with him, she knew that when she kissed him and surely he must have known that too. Yet he insisted on sending her away. She thought at the time, and in the month since, that he expected that she loves (loved? Or loves? Or does it matter now, here in this room?) Raoul more. But now, cradling Erik as if he were a child, she wonders if maybe he knew his death was coming. (Is coming. _Is_.)

(She expected to find him at his organ when she arrived, those elegant fingers dancing across the keys. Or to find him lying prostrate on his black couch with his veins full of morphine, a languid drugged smile on his lips, yellow eyes simmering amber, half-closed in some gentle fantasy. Never did she even consider that she might find him like this. How could she have let herself even entertain such a possibility?)

 _I would like you to marry her as soon as possible._

The words so slow and considered from his lips that night echo in her mind now. He would have had them married in a day, she suspects, eyes stinging, if it were within his power to have done so. He would have married them himself with tears trickling in rivulets down his cheeks if such authority were vested in him. He didn't (doesn't. Still doesn't. She's thinking of him as if he's dead already, even though he's still breathing in her arms, each breath so tired and shallow, and if she rests her hand on his chest she can feel the feeble fluttering of his heart inside) _doesn_ _'t_ want her left alone. Wants her to be happy and safe when he's gone.

Let him think that. Let the thought of her being happy be a comfort to him now. She could never be happy without him. If there's anything she's learned over the last long weeks it's that. To not see him, to not hear his voice so soft and yet commanding, power radiating through him…No, she wasn't happy. Though she tried to be, for his sake and for Raoul. It was one thing to not be happy, and yet know he was still living, still breathing, his heart still forcing life through him. It will be another thing now when that comfort is gone.

 _I won_ _'_ _t be able to give you away in the church of course._

The gentle touch of his long fingers holding her hand as he gave it to Raoul has been the ghost that's haunted her since Raoul brought her away – his cold fingers joining their hands, his hot tears falling on them as if unbeknownst to him. She feels them now, still, even as she sees those long fingers lying so limp and lifeless on the sheets. It's surreal, as if she's suddenly stepped into a parallel world where everything is upside down and Erik, dear Erik, poor wonderful Erik, can be losing his grip on life as he lies in her arms. It's not real. It can't be real. (It is real. The weight of the thin wedding band he slipped onto her finger is evidence enough of that. She gave it to him first, as she vowed to love him and to cherish him until death does them part, as if that were decades away instead of hours. (Minutes?) The bitter cruelty twists in her chest and she almost laughs.)

She should have stayed, she knows that now. She should never have let him give her away, should have pulled her hands away from him and fisted them in the lapels of his dress coat and vowed to stay with him then.

Maybe if she had, it wouldn't have come to this. Maybe if she had, he would have minded himself better. Maybe if she had, he would have found the strength to fight his illness.

( _"Not your fault_ ," he whispered, only hours ago, eyes flicking unseeingly across her face as he lay in her arms. _"Not your fault…Coming a long…time. Christine, I have not…been well. Saw it in…the cards."_ And his lips twitch in a wry smile, right hand reached up and softly cradling her cheek. _"Feared I was…dreaming. Might still…be. You are h-here, yes? Expected my h-hand would…glide through. Dissipate. Yet you are…more than mist."_ His words rising and falling in time with each laboured breath, so exhausting for him. She tried to shush him, tried to get him to conserve his energy, but he kept talking as if he couldn't hear her, his words so slow, such an effort. _"My dear, I…pro-profoundly apolo…gise. Such spectacle…unbecoming. Morphine dulled…and hastened…inevitable. Could not…otherwise sleep. Too much…going on. Opium is a…remarkable drug. Must thank Nadir…for it."_ He swallowed, and let his hand fall from her cheek to rest on top of hers, a feather-light touch.. _"So unfortunate, darling. Beads of blood from…needle punctures the…only bloody roses I'll sire. Dear you d-deserve better."_ He didn't know what he was saying, that much was obvious from such delirious ramblings. Then he came back to himself, or seemed to, and quietly pleaded with her to leave so as not to have to see him like this. She could never have gone. Not now.)

"Oh, Erik. I'm sorry," she whispers, hoping he can still hear her, somehow. "I'm so sorry." The thin, delicate blue veins stand out starkly in his eyelids, his eyes roving slowly under them as he wanders down some dark avenue of memory. She presses a kiss to each closed lid, and hugs him closer, and tries not to think that his breathing is fainter than it was a few minutes ago.

 _I believe, on such a day, it would be quite permissible to kiss the bride_.

Bowing her head, she kisses those deformed lips again, so unmoving beneath hers. So unlike the lips she kissed that night he had Raoul trapped in the torture chamber, the lips that moved in time with her own only a few hours ago when their tears mingled and she became his bride. Her husband, such a strange thought. He is not merely Erik now, and she is not merely Christine. They've transcended that here in this deathbed, become something more. A husband and wife, who can never live as such, because any moment now the breath he draws will be his last and it's all too much. Too much. So much she'll implode with the hollowness of getting to have him in her arms for a handful of hours before he's ripped away again to go where she can't follow.

(She kissed his face and his neck and the hollow at his collarbone, every inch of his skin that she could lay her lips to. She breathed words into him, murmurings of love and gentle apologies, reassurances that she's really here and she will be all right. He whimpered beneath her touch and sighed, half-delirious, those once-brilliant burning golden eyes dimmed and misty, his trembling warm, feverish hand trailing up her leg, whispers from cracked and malformed lips. His thin hips shifted underneath her as she paid tribute to his still-living body. _I love you_ , he sighed into her mouth, her fingers stroking the tears away from his cheeks.

He came undone beneath her lips and hands, her name a whimpered novena off his tongue, one night of glorious touch and sensation. He always craved touch, craved the tender intimacy of lying in the arms of another person, and yet could never be granted it by anyone else. She can see that now, even if it took a month away from him for her to realise it. To touch him, to love him (to make love to him) the last gift she could give him, almost a sacrament. And as he lay there, shivers wracking his body afterwards from his fever and her gentle ministrations, she fixed his clothes, re-buttoning and straightening so that even on the verge of death he can maintain his graceful pride, the elegance marked in every line of his being. Their marriage-bed his deathbed. Not the bridal suite he would have given her if he had the chance to.)

In another world, he would have been a prince, a king, a lord looked up to by all, and she his queen. But the quirk of fate that destroyed his face destroyed every chance he had of receiving the glory he deserved. It bred hatred and fear and perverse curiosity about what he hid beneath the mask, the mask at once protecting him from their gaze and ensuring they looked harder. The mask that protected them from his face, both armour and chains.

(She whispers him stories, weaves him a splendid world for to dream about in death. Walks on Bois, arm in arm. His works performed and lauded and adored, her in the title role, him the mysterious conductor. A wedding day, rose petals in her hair, the white dress he designed, their fingers interlinked and his smile glowing from beneath the mask. Children, a son and a daughter – two beautiful children to love their father and his face and whom he tells stories to, and plays the violin for them to sleep without nightmares. Nights spent, just the two of them, curled together in bed, his head on her belly and her hand stroking through his hair, neither speaking simply existing. He takes her dancing, and she sings for him, and pretends to sleep while he dances slowly in the parlour with their baby in his arms. And they are happy, and content, and nothing and nobody can harm them because they have each other. She spins stories until her voice breaks with the force of the tears she's holding back, and reminds her that they are only stories and can never become reality.)

 _Perhaps I don_ _'_ _t want a dead wife in a glass coffin_.

The candlelight plays across his pale face, casting shadows and long golden fingers, the sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, such thin skin waxy pale in these hours. And he's beautiful, so beautiful even now. How could she have failed to see that before? She was blinded with fear, with anxiously mixed up feelings and she overlooked the wonder that was right here in front of her. And for what? To lose him now, like this, when they could have had so much more time.

She's breathless with it, breathless with the weight of how much she loves him, the emptiness of the last month of loving him the way she should love Raoul, breathless with having to go on without him but she will because that's all he asks of her, to be happy and safe. To be a living wife.

Well, he got his living wife. And she's going to get her dead husband, the knowledge an ever-expanding ache in her chest that forces out all air, all feeling, all thoughts other than the fact that she's losing him. She's going to lose him. Wha- Ho- Can such things be? Surely it must be a fantasy. Surely she'll wake up any minute now and the last day will have been one long, horrible nightmare, and he'll smile that gentle smile at her when she tells him about how terribly certain she was that this was the end.

But those lips will never smile again, even if the fierce heat has died out of his skin.

 _"_ _If you ever find a moment . . . spare a thought for me._ _"_

He whispered it in his sleep, after his last seizure, a rasped murmur that has sunk deep into her mind and which she cannot shake. (Think of him. How could she not think of him?) When his writhing body stilled against her, bruises on her wrist from his fingers clenched so tight, she was sure it had killed him, so still and quiet was he when only a moment before he contorted with pain. And somewhere in the midst of that unconsciousness, already half in the next world, he pleaded with her ever so softly to think of him.

"Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime," she half-sings, voice a whisper, watching her tears fall on his face. "Say the word and I will follow you. Share each day with me, each night, each morning. Say you love me," her voice cracks, and she can't go on, can't stem the flow of tears now. And she doesn't want to. Carefully, ever so carefully, she re-adjusts her grip on him, his head resting against her shoulder, their fingers intertwined. "I love you, Erik." _If you take nothing else into the darkness with you, take that_ , she prays. _You were loved by me, and you were not alone._ All he ever wanted, to be loved, to be accepted. She can't deny him that now. She can't deny him anything now.

Even dying, his thoughts were for her future. How he must have loved her. How it must have killed him to think that she would leave without telling him, without saying so much as goodbye. No wonder his words were such poison, his voice so cruel after he brought the chandelier down. She deserved every bit of his bitterness. Abandoned by everyone else, of course it must have felt as if she was grinding a knife ever deeper into him when he thought she would abandon him too.

 _Do you know how to make tea?_

If making tea could save him she'd make all of the tea in the world.

A spasm runs through his body, the twitching of his fingers where they rest on the sheets interlaced with Christine's disturbing Ayesha lying beside him. He trembles, long legs shifting, mouth open, gasping for breath. Christine hugs him tighter, his forehead heavy against her neck. She kisses him and whispers soft words between kisses, not knowing what she's saying but knowing that she has to say _something_. She loves him. He needs to know that. He needs to know it's all right to go. She'll be all right. She loves him. Did she say that? Did she tell him enough when he was conscious to hear her? Did he feel it in her lips? She knows he loves her, she should have seen it sooner, she should have returned to him faster. She loves him. She's sorry for hurting him, sorry for the tears that coursed down his cheeks as he gave her to Raoul. She's sorry. She loves him. She's sorry.

He whimpers, a low whimper deep in his throat and stills, the trembling ebbing away, blood on his lips, his body suddenly so much heavier in her arms. A whimper and it's over.

Softly, she untangles their fingers and presses her hand to his chest, slipping it in under his shirt, his skin clammy beneath her palm, then gently seeks out the pulse in his neck. But the fluttering is gone, and her stomach lurches as if she's fallen off the edge of the world. (She knew it. She knew it before she checked. But knowing it and confirming it to herself are two very different things, and one is infinitely worse than the other.)

The candlelight glints off the wedding band on her finger as she wipes the blood from his lips and kisses him, one last time. ( _I believe it is customary…for the groom to give it…to his bride._ ) It's so hard to breathe, her throat so achingly tight and the air suddenly so cold as she eases him down to the bed, smoothing his hair and the creases from his shirt, buttoning his waistcoat and his dress coat. (Only he would die in his dress clothes, so particular right to the end. It's almost funny.) A single tear splashes on each of his hands as she takes them in hers and kisses each knuckle of each skeletal finger, an anointment before she folds those beloved limp hands over his heart.

For a long moment, she looks down at him, at this body laid out on the bed, who was once an opera ghost and an angel of music, names he hasn't worn for her since he became Erik. He stalked a masquerade as Red Death, surrounded by paper faces and he didn't try to hide but they didn't find him anyway. ( _Tonight we shall attend the masked ball at the Opera together.)_ He anticipated every wish she could have when he prepared this very room for her. ( _In your room you will find a selection of theatrical costumes_.) He told her of a white rose who fell in love with a nightingale, a forbidden love that gave birth to the most beautiful flower of all. ( _Night after night the nightingale came to beg for divine love, but though the rose trembled at the sound of his voice, her petals remained closed to him._ She, Christine, she remained closed to him, so afraid of the tangled mess of feelings weaving their way around her heart. And by the time she overcame herself it was too late for him. It is too late. Why could she not have had the strength before? How she ached to reach out and touch him, to trace her fingers under his mask, to trace them along that skull-like face in a sacred exploration, to seek out those lips.)

Tenderly, hesitantly, she reaches out and lightly trails her fingers over his eyelids and down those sunken cheeks, his skin still warm beneath her fingertips, the nauseous chill her own. They slip over his lips, and cup his sharp chin, as if she could hurt him now. (Why won't he stir? Why won't he wake up? Why won't he blink his eyes open? Oh, God, _Why?_ How did she let this happen?) A vast, barren landscape opens up inside, as if placed there by an artist's hand, consuming everything, every ounce of what she knows, what she feels, aside from the unutterable fact that he is dead. He is dead. How can Erik be dead?

Slowly, she lies down beside him, resting their faces cheek-to-cheek, her lips at his ear, and she whispers, her voice so low that she sounds like him and it aches to say it, cuts her deep and yet speak she must, must use his own term for her because it is true both ways, "Sleep well, my dear. I love you."

And in this room of flickering candlelight, his body limp in her arms and oh so still, she wishes that she could die, too. That she could will her heart to stop and her lungs to fail, so that she may always lie like this, beside him, wrapped together for an eternity. But death is not so simple as that, and he wished for her to live a happy life.

 _Here, far from every human gaze, in your arms I wished to die._

Tears prick her eyes, and she nuzzles into him, tightening her arms around him as if it could fill the yawning chasm inside her chest. And softly, she begins to sing.


End file.
